EFL students' language awareness in an e-mail tandem activity

E-mail tandem is a reciprocal language learning method, in which two learners of a different native language (L1) have e-mail communication in the target language (L2, the partner's L1), and assist each other's L2 learning by giving and receiving feedback. Appel (1999) suggested that correction of the partner's errors enhances the development of learners' metalinguistic awareness (MA) of L1, which is thought to facilitate L2 learning. Therefore, this study attempted to investigate 1) what L1 features do Japanese tandem learners notice in the partner's language use, and analyze to explain linguistic rules to the partner, 2) how does their L1 MA affect L2 knowledge, and 3) whether L1 MA correlates L2 ability. The results showed that tandem learners of this study were aware of "linguistic" aspects of L1, and their L1 MA seemed to affect L2 knowledge by contrasting the two languages, trying to find similarities or differences of the linguistic system between L1 and L2. Also, learners with a high level of L1 MA appeared to possess high L2 proficiency. The study concludes by enumerating e-mail tandem's advantages in MA development.